Intel CEO Brian Krzanich is said to have sold his $24 million or 18 million pounds worth of company stock after learning about the massive security flaw in his company’s silicon chips. However, a spokesperson from the company says that the sale was planned in advance and had nothing to do with the flaws leaked to the media now.
According to a source from Daily Mail, Krzanich took the decision to divest the maximum stake in the firm just 4 months after the officials from Intel Inc, found out about the security bug. The UK based news resource adds that the issues, known as Meltdown and Spectre could affect billions of gadgets worldwide and could mainly affect legacy servers in data centers operating across the United States and around the world.
Technically speaking, Meltdown primarily affects Intel processors manufactured since 1995. But exclude the company’s Itanium server chips and Atom processors released before 2013. This flaw requires a change to the way the operating system handles memory to fix, which experts predict that it could affect the overall performance of the machine by more than 25%.
On the other hand, Spectre flaw affects all the modern Intel Processors as it allows hackers to trick otherwise error-free applications into disclosing memory related info such as passwords and other essential credentials.
Now, Mr. Krzanich owns just 250,000 worth stocks in his firm required minimum by the terms of his employment agreement.
In an interview given to the Business Insider UK, a representative of the Intel CEO said that the sale is in no way connected to the security flaw and was then planned accordingly by him on personal grounds.
According to the Security and Exchange Commission filing, the plan was put in place and was officially approved on October 30.
